Poll: Were you raised in a household that used more than one language?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
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Sep 25, 2018

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Were you raised in a household that used more than one language?".

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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 17:38
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Partially Sep 25, 2018

My father was born in Cape Verde but at home he only spoke Creole very occasionally.

 
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:38
Member (2004)
English to Italian
yes... Sep 25, 2018

if you include your regional dialect...

 
Klára Kalamár
Klára Kalamár  Identity Verified
Romania
Local time: 19:38
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Partially Sep 25, 2018

I have a couple of Romanian in-laws (relatives by alliance), so at family meetings we speak a mixed language of Hungarian and Romanian or we switch from one language to another. And so we did when I was a child too.

 
Yetta Jensen Bogarde
Yetta Jensen Bogarde  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 18:38
Member (2012)
English to Danish
+ ...
No Sep 25, 2018

Except my parents and grandparents (who lived with us) spoke a dialect.

But I married a French man and we spoke English at home. Our daughter's mother tongue is English although I am Danish.
She went to international schools.

It is a small world!


 
Juan Jacob
Juan Jacob  Identity Verified
Mexico
Local time: 11:38
French to Spanish
+ ...
Yes. Sep 25, 2018

French, Spanish, Catalan. Swell!

 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 18:38
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
Partly Sep 25, 2018

We spoke English at home, but were surrounded by Marathi-speakers, and my parents spoke it fluently. They discussed language constantly - my father taught New Testament Greek, and sometimes my mother taught English.

The family came to England for a year when I was three, and might otherwise have picked up some Marathi naturally. Back in India we lived at the 'wrong end' of town, and small children were not allowed to go out alone. My brother and I never managed to pick up more than
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We spoke English at home, but were surrounded by Marathi-speakers, and my parents spoke it fluently. They discussed language constantly - my father taught New Testament Greek, and sometimes my mother taught English.

The family came to England for a year when I was three, and might otherwise have picked up some Marathi naturally. Back in India we lived at the 'wrong end' of town, and small children were not allowed to go out alone. My brother and I never managed to pick up more than a few phrases of Marathi and about half the alphabet, and my sisters were too small to pick up any Marathi at all. I had a year at school in England when I was seven, and came back finally at ten.

We were also surrounded by a variety of English - we regularly met Americans, Canadians and Australians. My brother and I spoke with an Anglo-Indian accent at our first school - and were totally silent if our parents came to the school, because we were not allowed to use the accent at home!

Many children grow up with two accents - one for home and one for school, and later, my sisters' Northumbrian burr was more or less accepted! It still sounds like home to me, but by then I was at boarding school in Hertford… so I have a very boring accent myself.
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neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 18:38
Spanish to English
+ ...
Other Sep 26, 2018

My mum had studied German and occasionally uttered mild epithets like "verfluchtige Dinge". And she used to say "pas devant l'enfant" (but I knew what it meant)....

 
Aline Canino
Aline Canino  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 18:38
Chinese to French
+ ...
Italian Sep 26, 2018

We always spoke French at home, but my father was Italian and he spoke a kind of napolitan dialect. He thought it wasn't a correct form of Italian so he didn't want me to learn it. I heard Italian in my childhood but I wasn't given the opportunity to speak. The result is I can understand Italian but I can't speak it fluently...

 
Carla Catolino
Carla Catolino
Italy
Local time: 18:38
Member (2008)
Italian to English
+ ...
Italian Sep 26, 2018

My father was an Italian immigrant to Canada. On my mother's side my grandparents were Italian immigrants.
I learned to Italian dialects as a child since my father is from Central Italy and my grandparents on my mother's side were Venetian.
Growing up in Canada I studied French and took my minor in French at University.
I then married an Italian and moved to Italy. My children speak English and Italian fluently.
My children are also exposed to Spanish as my sister and her
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My father was an Italian immigrant to Canada. On my mother's side my grandparents were Italian immigrants.
I learned to Italian dialects as a child since my father is from Central Italy and my grandparents on my mother's side were Venetian.
Growing up in Canada I studied French and took my minor in French at University.
I then married an Italian and moved to Italy. My children speak English and Italian fluently.
My children are also exposed to Spanish as my sister and her husband speak Spanish in their household. My children understand almost everything they say, and my oldest daughter is learning Spanish at school.
We are a good mix in this family!
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Michael Harris
Michael Harris  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 18:38
Member (2006)
German to English
No Sep 26, 2018

I grew up in Swaziland so I had to learn Siswati and later on Afrikaans, but English was the only language that we actually spoke.

 
Mario Freitas
Mario Freitas  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 14:38
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Four languages regularly Sep 26, 2018

My mother was Lebanese. Her family lived in Lebanon.
My father was Brazilian. His family lived in Brazil.
My parents got married in Lebanon and moved to Brazil immediately.
In Lebanon, everyone speaks Arabic, but the best schools are French, so educated people speak French. My mother's family spoke in both Arabic and French regularly.
Being born in Brazil, our family language was Portuguese, of course, but we lived around French and Arabic all the time with my mom speakin
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My mother was Lebanese. Her family lived in Lebanon.
My father was Brazilian. His family lived in Brazil.
My parents got married in Lebanon and moved to Brazil immediately.
In Lebanon, everyone speaks Arabic, but the best schools are French, so educated people speak French. My mother's family spoke in both Arabic and French regularly.
Being born in Brazil, our family language was Portuguese, of course, but we lived around French and Arabic all the time with my mom speaking to her family and to us. She was a French and English teacher.
So my house has always been a sort of 4-language Babel Tower until I went to college.
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Poll: Were you raised in a household that used more than one language?






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